YarnCon 2017: Ooooh, Shiny

The Philosopher and I went to YarnCon yesterday! It's always a lovely way to feel like spring is here, having a large local yarn festival. And it doesn't hurt that my friend Shannon drives in from Ohio and so I get a hug and a chance to share at least one ridiculous story.

Observations of the day: the general pallet is still multi-colored, but it's more muted than in the past couple of years. There were a couple of dyers with shaded solids but I've still not seen anyone competing with Two Guys Yarn Co for pastels. What did surprise me was that the only "tool" type booths I saw were for project bags. I saw only one booth that seemed to have spindles and no one had wheels this year that I spotted.

There were some favorite vendors I've seen before and a few new ones that were delightful and so obviously I had to make a few acquisitions.

The Philosopher has asked for a new customized mitt for working on digital boards. I wanted something that isn't going to show dirt all the time but was lovely. Yes, I know that first picture is horribly blown out, I was trying to show all of the colors. This black+ yarn from Honey Girl Farms is delightfully complex without being annoying. From 10 feet, it'll look mostly black but from up close there's quite a richness. 

Black Cat Fiber is going in the books as a new favorite. They had tremendous colors. I limited myself to just this one and doesn't the silk just shine! This should be a lovely small shawlette. I know it will mute a bit as knit up but it'll be a lovely gift to someone when done.  And they were just lovely in the booth to chat with. As my first purchase of the day, they also recommended a few other favorites to swing by. 

The Philosopher and I were both immediately drawn to the bag of these braids in CJ Kopec's booth. It's a brand new colorway for her, designed by her son. It's called Cadet and it's 100% merino. I hadn't been sure if I would buy fiber this year; I still haven't spindled up the entire 4 ounces that I bought at YarnCon last year from YarnGeek.  This was so appealing, however, that I couldn't pass it up. Several people asked me about it as we wandered about, so I assume a few more braids went home with new friends too! 

I was specifically recommended by two people to drop into the Northern Bee Studio booth and I was very pleased that I did. I'm sure they won the award for farthest traveled--they came from Alaska! They shared that to fly all of the yarn here, they put it in vacuum sealed bags and prayed very hard that TSA wouldn't open the bags and inadvertently fluff all the yarn again! Everything made it and it looked like they'd be taking far less home. I was happy to help contribute to lighter luggage with this Deep Forest skein. You can't see the label but it's 10% yak. So very deliciously soft. Also, they had a cobalt blue skein that was *ridiculously*  bright. Unfortunately, it was only available as a miniskein but I was assured that it would be on the website soon.

And finally, up on the balcony this year (that was new, not sure if I liked it), was Sophie's Toes. That should be a familiar name by this point, I buy things from her pretty much every YarnCon and AudioGirl's Christmas gift was knit from one of her 6 packs. We discussed a few of her colorways and I ended up with this lovely one-of-a-kind skein, something she'd overdyed. It'll likely just become a pair of socks, but what a fun knit that will be to discover the colors that come next.  Her booth looked like it'd been hit pretty hard but there was still some lovely stuff for the Sunday crowd. 

I haven't bought a lot of yarn this year besides what I've needed for Loopy Academy (that's been enough) and that's probably good as I've also not used a whole lot of yarn. But these struck me as special enough to jam into the space around Chez Hedgehog. Now to just keep them from marinating too long...